08/06/2013 |
Elicia Brown |
Special To The Jewish Week |
All She Wrote

Stories of Jewish women trapped in dead-end marriages, held hostage by embittered husbands, always disturb me. Jewish law assigns the man the exclusive right to confer a divorce, and some men abuse that power, vengefully refusing to release unhappy spouses from the bonds of matrimony.

07/09/2013 |
Elicia Brown |
Special To The Jewish Week |
All She Wrote

Like many women in midlife, Joy Ladin tenses up as she approaches a mirror. But upon seeing her reflection — a bob of wavy hair, a long skirt, a bold necklace — Joy feels grateful. For more than four decades, Joy lived as Jay, a woman trapped in a man’s body, a woman wearing a beard, a woman who could never don a dress without repercussions, a woman who was so distanced from her body that she felt “far away, or far below, or somewhere within,” the loving family with whom she lived. During these years, a fleeting glance at her face would traumatize her.

06/11/2013 |
Elicia Brown |
Special To The Jewish Week |
All She Wrote

I distinctly remember the pleasures of being 23, of jogging through the parks of Tokyo, where I then lived, the frogs croaking and cicadas humming in the evening’s darkness, my body and soul invigorated by the endless possibilities that lay around the next bend, wherever that might be.